


Comrades in Arms

by Calleva



Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Pain, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-16
Updated: 2020-02-16
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:21:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22758454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Calleva/pseuds/Calleva
Summary: When Treville receives a summons to escort a widow on a long journey, he is confused and annoyed. He had been expecting to spend a quiet afternoon on his own, and now he was on an errand that shouldn't have been laid on him.But an unexpected encounter stirs up old, painful, memories. Can his past be part of his future?
Relationships: Treville/Original Female Character
Kudos: 3





	Comrades in Arms

It was unusually quiet at the Garrison and Treville realised that he had nothing specific to do that afternoon. He decided to buy a brioche aux prunes, ride out of the city and eat it in peace. Exhilarated at having time to think without constant interruption, he pulled on his coat and left his office.

He was in time to face a young messenger on the steps who gave a curt bow and handed him a scroll. Irritated, he unrolled it without ceremony.  
"What does that old woman mean, asking for us to escort her?" He mumbled, wondering if this was a job he could offload onto the Red Guard whose competence was surely equal to taking one elderly woman from a convent to a village.

"It's an unusual request, but as it comes from the Queen's office I cannot refuse." He said slowly.

With a sinking feeling, Treville realised that he had no one of sufficient rank to do the job, so goodbye to the plum-filled brioche and goodbye to those precious moments of peace. He dismissed the messenger, called a couple of experienced cadets and told Madame d'Artagnan that they would be away for about three days.

He could ride alongside the old woman's carriage and still eat the brioche in relative peace, he supposed. He patted his pocket to check it had coins. It was his second-best but most comfortable coat and he would wear it as a small token of his resentment.

"Treville of the Musketeers, by order of the Queen. I'm here to escort La Comtesse de la Broque."  
The convent grille revealed nothing of the face behind it. "Wait here, please." Said a young woman's voice.  


Treville was pretty sure that the Dowager would be aristocratic in her tastes and demands. He hoped that she wouldn't complain too much about the roads; they, at least, were not his responsibility. She'd either be thin and rheumatic or fat and gouty. Either way he would be able to ride his horse in relative peace as she wouldn't want conversation with him. Since she was living in a convent guesthouse, she was probably very pious and would spend her time with her beads and prayer book.

Two male servants appeared, carrying a trunk, followed by two maids with another, smaller, one - so the latter would be her travelling companions. Finally a figure clad in black appeared. Despite the enveloping cloak, he noticed she was slim but upright and walked easily. Treville bowed low. "My lady, I am Captain Treville of the Queen's Musketeers, here to escort you to Lyons-la-Foret."  
The lady did not instantly reply and when Treville rose, he realised it was because her eyes were brimming. "Jean-Armand? ...Jean, is it really you?"  
Astonished, Treville scanned the face within the hood, "Marie-Therese? I'd no idea.... I would have found someone else, had I known...."  
"Nonsense! Why should two old friends not meet again? I would like to know where life took you since we parted so long ago, I have wondered often enough. Of course if all this is painful for you, you could ride alongside my carriage. We do not have to speak."  
Treville gave a brief smile, "You have quite surprised me, Mariette, but it is a pleasant one. I had never expected... the name I was given was de la Broque..."  
"Then the scribe misheard."  
"If I am to ride with you in the carriage, I must return my horse to the Garrison. Tell your coachman to follow, and then we'll be on our way. There's a baker near to where we are going, I'll pick up some tartelets, and that may placate your maids for the delay."

\----------

Even with the rumble of the carriage behind him, the ride back to the Garrison gave Treville a few moments to recover from the shock and gather his thoughts.

He had met Marie-Therese de Sauveterre one summer, long ago, at a ball in Tours. A young soldier, he was only there because one of his fellow officers was an aristocrat. Among all the women present, Mariette shimmered in silvery gray satin, her smile radiant, but not, he thought, genuine. Treville had asked her to dance, to find out what lay behind the smile that wasn't.

She had been amused at his presumption and later charmed that he hadn't known who she was. The de Sauveterre family owned the house in which the ball took place. The huge chandeliers, the gold leaf decoration, the small army of footmen in red livery and the ranks of exquisite food and wine were all theirs.

The balcony was welcome after the heat of the ballroom and, cooled by the summer breezes, they talked.  
"How delightful that you are not from Paris," She twinkled mischievously.  
"Why, are the Parisiens not delightful?" He resolved not to be intimidated by this confident young woman with the awkward smile. In truth, he found it strangely easy to talk to her.  
"Oh not at all. You are a long way from the Pyrenees, soldier. Don't you miss the cowbells and the mountains?" She peered at him over her lace fan.  
He gave a low laugh, "Not particularly, and a man has to make his way. I'd rather be a soldier than kicking my heels on my father's estate." Well, that sounded grand, didn't it? He hadn't meant it to, his father had bought the region of Trois Villes some years ago, and had thus become a sort of noble, though he wasn't an aristocrat.  
"So what ails your mood tonight?" He asked her.  
"Who are you to ask, soldier?"  
"As you say, I am a military man, and we are direct by nature. You are the most beautiful woman in the room and yet I detect a shadow just behind your smile, charming though it is."  
"I see even soldiers can use fine words." She sighed and looked out over the gardens below.  
"My family owns everything you can see from here, and I have wanted for nothing all my life. But it's not the life I would choose... Tonight, my family would rather I meet and converse with the many noblemen here all desperate to marry me. And why should they not be? I may only be a second daughter, but my father is a particularly powerful duke."  
"And many nobles would like to have the wealth and connections your father's daughter would bring."  
She sighed, "It's my fortune they see. We once drove past a place where they were selling cattle. A cow was being led round and round, watched by a lot of men wondering if she will have nice calves, make lots of milk. They didn't care if she was mean or gentle. I feel a bit like that cow."  
"I can see there are similarities," he replied conspiratorially, "Your eyes, for instance....."  
"You're saying that I have eyes like a cow? How dare you, soldier boy!"  
He laughed, "I can tell you have never looked into the eyes of a cow. They are large, expressive and very pretty, like yours. But yours are blue, of course, making them entirely unlike."  
"Now you are being charming again.."  
"Would you rather I not be?"  
"Oh anything but the false flattery of the men who prance around me all day long." She sighed and snapped her fan shut.

They fell in love quickly and that summer they took every chance to meet. Treville asked her to marry him and she accepted, but this meant nothing without her father's permission. "I need time to win him over," She had insisted as Treville fretted with impatience, "please let me do this my way."

Their last meeting had been a tearful one. Her face, swollen from crying, had revealed the sorrow ahead of them even before she opened her mouth to tell him that her parents had agreed an engagement with a rich widower. She had told them of her love for the almost-noble Treville to have it waved aside as of no importance. It would never have been acceptable for the second daughter of the Duc de Sauveterre to marry the eldest son of the lord of Trois Villes.

"I love you, I will never love anyone ever again, and certainly not this fusty old comte!" she had sobbed. Treville tried to take her in his arms but she turned away, "I can't!"  
Tears filled his eyes and he took his leave, "If I can't have you, I will marry no one!"  
And for twenty five years he had preserved the memory of this one woman. He went into battle wearing round his neck a locket with a piece of her fair hair and a miniature portrait, complete with wide eyes, almost cowlike with their long lashes.

_____

Treville didn't often travel by coach and were it not for his companion, would not have relished it now, despite the thick upholstery which cushioned them from the rutted roads. In the country, they stopped to refresh themselves. The two maids retired with their pastries some way off to chat and flirt with the two cadets and the coachman. Treville and the Countess sat on a river bank undisturbed.  
"I never did marry," He told her simply, "I kept my word."  
"You were always so honest and direct. I missed you keenly."  
"Your husband? The 'fusty old comte' you called him."  
"Robert was a good man though I never loved him from the heart. He had a daughter from his first marriage but sadly we were never blessed with children. I became a mother to Ninon and she grew into a beautiful young woman who knew her own mind. She never cared for the trappings of wealth either."  
"Ninon Delarroque? The young woman who was tried for heresy and stripped of her wealth by the Cardinal?"  
The Countess nodded " I am on my way to see her. She runs a school for village girls. It's not the life we planned for her but I do believe she's happy. She is not my daughter but I plan to leave her my own fortune if she wants it. The house where she lives was in my gift, so she's never been destitute, whatever the Cardinal thought. Now he's dead she is safe from him and can even return to Paris if she wishes."  
"Assuming Governor Feron does not decide to resurrect the charges,"  
"Why should he? I used to hate the trappings of society, but I have learned that there are benefits. I would say I know the Marquis de Feron as well as I do most of the noble families in Paris; I am not without influence. It was at a card party where Queen Anne heard of my wish to travel and offered your services, though I hardly dreamed it would be you they would send. Look at us, an old lady and an old soldier sitting on the ground eating brioche like comrades in arms!"  
"Didn't I always say that you'd have made a wonderful soldier, if you'd been a man?" He pulled up a daisy and offered it to her in mock gallantry; their hands touched as she took it. He remembered how the touch of her skin always felt to him as if their souls also touched.  
"It's still the same, isn't it?" He watched the river flowing lazily, it was low and he could see the stones of the riverbed beneath.  
"Yes, it's still the same." Words were no longer important so they sat in silence, bathing in each other's company.  
_______

An unremarkable tavern in a less busy part of Paris would be a good place to unwind after returning Mariette to the convent guesthouse. He wouldn't be noticed here, no one would bother him and he would have a few moments' peace before the hussle and bustle of the Garrison. How funny it was, he thought as he cradled the tankard in both hands, looking into the bubbles of ale, how two people can still find that familiar spark, despite more than two intervening decades. Yet they were different too, saplings grown into oaks with burrs and cankers and indwelling creatures like old habits and thoughts. She had found solace in religious faith, the true sort, not the pietistic display of hypocrites. He had found a family in his Musketeers after a distinguished army career. Had he married her he would have been promoted to General and never been a Musketeer. His life would have been very different.

But now what? He and Mariette both wished to stay in contact. Would they marry eventually? Would she take him? Or would her society status matter more to her now? He would always love her most deeply. "I am not a changeable man," He said in a soft voice, addressing the fire in the grate.

He was aware that he had been heard and realised with alarm that his hearer was dressed in red. As their eyes met, he felt the sadness in the other man. It was that callow young captain, the one who couldn't put down a riot of unarmed men in a prison yard. Treville didn't expect to run into any Red Guard here. Didn't they have their own favourite drinking hole?

Feeling mellow after his time with Marie-Therese, he nodded in recognition of the young man with the dark eyes. Marcheaux nodded back and looked down at his own ale. Two men, come here for a brief escape from their lives. Without his usual swagger, the younger man looked vulnerable and a little lost. Perhaps it was the emotion of meeting Mariette again, but Treville felt he knew what was ailing Marcheaux.

He finished his ale and got up to leave. Passing Marcheaux he briefly leaned over him and muttered, "Don't lose her. You may never find another."

He moved away, expecting a snippy response.  
"Thanks," it was said softly and without resentment.  
"Advice from an old dog, don't let anything or anyone stand in your way."  
"Feron says I can do better and her boss says I'm a lying cad who will betray her."  
"And will you?" Unasked, Treville sat down at the table.  
Marcheaux shook his head. "She's a seamstress at the palace, from one of the villages, yet she's like no one I've ever met. Governor Feron...." He hesitated, Treville nodded sympathetically, so he went on "doesn't approve and I need my job to support a wife."

A pity that this flawed young man didn't have the makings of a Musketeer, but he didn't, and there was nothing Treville could do but offer wise words. "Don't give up, you'll find a way." He said and stood up. Outside, he took a deep breath.

He must get back to the Garrison and consult Athos about the King. He couldn't reveal what he knew about Louis' illness, but they must be prepared for conflict sooner rather than later. Feron also knew and would use the Red Guard to provoke unrest. There would be no time to nurse the decades of pain that threatened to wash over him. As before, Treville would find solace in activity even though his heart was broken. And so would the lovesick Red Guard captain, though both were on opposite sides.

Matters of the heart make the strangest people comrades in arms, he mused, touching the locket that hung round his neck.


End file.
